superficiality

In social psychology, superficiality refers to a lack of depth in relationships, conversation and analysis. The principle of "superficiality versus depth" is said to have pervaded Western culture since at least the time of Plato. Social psychology considers that in everyday life, social processing veers between superficiality and a deeper form of processing.

==Historical sketch== Socrates sought to convince his debaters to turn from the superficiality of a worldview based on the acceptance of convention to the examined life of philosophy, founded (as Plato at least considered) upon the underlying Ideas. For more than two millennia, there was in the Platonic wake a general valorisation of critical thought over the superficial subjectivity that refused deep analysis. The salon style of the Précieuses might for a time affect superficiality, and play with the possibility of treating serious topics in a light-hearted fashion; but the prevailing western consensus firmly rejected elements such as everyday chatter or the changing vagaries of fashion as superficial distractions from a deeper reality.